INVENTARIO DEL CICLO DE VIDA DE MATERIALES Y PROCESOS CARACTERÍSTICOS DEL SECTOR CERÁMICO

Abstract

The stage of the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) in the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology, implies the data acquisition and the calculation procedures to quantify the inputs and outputs of a system. This is the most time consuming stage of the LCA for two main reasons. The first one is related to the high consumption of resources, namely time, required for the data acquisition and their assignation to the selected functional unit. The second of them has to do with the willingness of the companies to publish their data, for confidentiality reasons, mainly. Although the making of an LCI is an iterative process, in this communication it will be presented a first approximation to a characteristic inventory of the ceramic tile manufacturing industry sector, covering materials and processes like: • Step 1: extraction, treatment and commercialization of the clay • Step 2: wet milling and spray drying • Step 3: production of frit and glaze • Step 4: production of the ceramic tile (reception of the clay, forming process (pressing), drying, glazing, pre-draying and firing, packaging and palletising. Keywords: life cycle analysis, LCA, life cycle inventory, LCI, ceramic tile.